Monday 1:30am: Suddenly what drones becomes rushing to curl a piece of hair, imaging that the curl will wilt, moisturizing, evening skin tones, filling in eyebrows, oh! lotion on legs, and cut the green peppers and get the seeds into the trash, and Fruitflies! Hot green chai tea, and I hope the beepandhums don’t wake the girls, and which coat? And is the clasp going to break on the suitcase? And teeth brushed, and not enough room in my hands for the pumpernickel sandwich and the tea mug and Haunted and the backpack and the suitcase and the poor fur fringe on my coat. Then there’s me shuffling down Nevada St. because I’m mostly afraid that I look just out of control enough to be a target of something.
I walked to the Bellair shuttle bus, and the Bellair shuttle bus man had old-world charm with his arm reached for me to step on&off, with his hand cupping my elbow, like I was worth it. There were two men on the bus having an entire ride’s worth of dialogue on where they’d been, or, mostly where the dominating male lead had been, and how his wife couldn’t keep up with him anymore, so he traveled alone, and he was going to Easter Island and on and on, the whole while, the listener was inserting and reinserting and twisting two Styrofoam cups into each other’s groove, making that irritating squeal you can’t stop thinking about, as if he was thinking about all the things he wished he had done.
On the flight to Denver I read a little, slept mostly, sat by a couple in their 40’s who kept grabbing for each other’s hand; it was evident they were in love based on the need in their fingers.
On the flight to New York I read a little, slept mostly. My seat was at the back of the plane right in front of the toilet, and there were multiple babies who “pooperdiddled,” which had me and the girl next to me covering our noses with our shirts and every so often, a wave to push the smell into each other’s breathing spaces. I watched Barefoot Contessa make savory puff pastries. It was in the middle of learning how to make a cheese spread with cheesecloth and lemon zest when a man across the aisle asked me a question.
Hinton Harrison and I talked about Aspen & San Francisco & fashion & art & running & tattoos & Facebook & driving around the country in a Chevy camper. Then he takes a picture of me pulling my mother’s suitcase from the overhead, and of Marilyn and, then shows me a picture he took of me sleeping, mouth open.
On the flight to Syracuse, I tried to sleep, but the woman beside me needed my seat for her elbows and newspaper and the heat would come in full hot and breathy and the sound of the plane was like riding inside a lawnmower, and the little boy in the back of the 15-seat plane kept asking for a cup of ketchup and Why and Why is it and Why comes?
There was a little man at the exit welcoming everyone to the city of Syracuse with Have-a-good-night’s. Anders was waiting there, 12 hours of travel on my part later, as far away as I could find. I told Anders about the man on the plane. We drove over an hour on black slick upstate streets with bars of chocolate&hazelnuts (xoxo Laurey), to get to Gary & Rosita’s in Lyons Falls.
October 5, 1am: Climbed into bed beneath a jean comforter.
In the morning, the air perfect and cold, I put on a jumpsuit and went downstairs to meet G&R, who were baking savory pies for the last farmers market. Gary wore wool socks that swallowed the bootleg thickness of his jeans. I had some good coffee and dense, warm banana bread for breakfast while talking to Gary about ee & Carl Hiaasen & the graphic novel. Shadow came in with a wet dog scent and did a yip&dance before the three of them headed to the market. I told Anders that it was Hinton Harrison that I had met the night before, and it turned out Anders knows HH.
Anders and I walked to the market under a big umbrella. The market had about 10 vendors selling Amish loaves of wheat and white and moonpies, a large booth of carrots that grew in twists at the hips: a braid between, garlic necklaces, the thinnest wieners and ginger ale, rutabagas and zucchini. We bought some bread and vegetables with thoughts of stew. We sucked the cream from a moonpie and thought about the Amish. After the market we walked down to the falls that fell in billows of steam and rush from the force of water falling over rock over pool. The falls fell beneath an old paper mill, the sound of fast steps behind a night’s walk.
We spent the early night reading in bed, snoozing slightly, until Gary&Rosita came home. Anders and I picked up a party-size pizza, hot wings, and Mountain Brew, and all of us ate around the wood table: sausage and pepperoni and mushrooms and beer in glass mugs and Anders sweating from the pull of the orange glaze, seven wings deep. We took turns answering crossword puzzle questions, we talked about family and weddings and who lasted the longest and Labor Camp and daughters and Germany and Vonnegut, and everything we needed to hear.
The rain in Lyons Falls fell hard. We slept in. For lunch Rosita set out cold triangles of pizza for Gary&I and nuked slices for Anders&she, a hunk of sausage, slices from the Amish loaf, of mozzarella and swiss, two cuts from a breakfast quiche, hummus, black tortilla and pita chips, and apple cider. After lunch I went into bed to read while Anders&Gary pulled grapevines that grew twisted in roots from the ground into the trees, for Gary to weave into a fence. Inside, Rosita was preparing dinner, making meatloaf, and because it was beautiful, because there was this German woman in a beautiful kitchen with hardwood, sculpting meat and spices with her long fingers, making it for her husband, a kitchen, natural and full of things from the garden and the market, it was here I wanted, more than anything, to cook. Pulled from the garden, Rosita brought out a bucket of small potatoes covered in dirt and handed me a skin peeler. I scooped the dirt from the dents with the tips of my nails, peeled the flesh from the potatoes with the thin metal peeler, a perfect peeler, nothing large and full of padding at the handle; the basics. We cut them in halves and boiled them. I took the compost outside, to where the mosquito’s swarmed lazily, and watched Anders trudge from the woods along the bank, carrying over his shoulder a large root. The root carried like some beasts tail, thirty feet behind, drawing a curl of a line in the dirt. Anders was panting, wet and soggy, his black dress pants brown from the beasts defeat.
: “I was up on this root, jumping on it so it would break, and Shadow was below me, jumping at me on the root, biting at my legs. I broke the limb and landed on him, hahaha…but he’s okay.”
All of us ate around the wood table: meatloaf with a thick bean stew sauce, carrot slices with sweet oil and parsley, mashed potatoes with nutmeg, and beer. Gary gave me a hard time about “Labor Camp.”
After dinner we watched Cops and Rosita said “Bad Boys” was her favorite song, so Gary turned the music up, and there was Rosita singing “Bad Boys” with a German accent, dancing with her upper body, and maybe some dips low at the knees. Then Rosita left quickly to take Shadow on a night walk and Gary said, “I just love it because it’s out of her character to do that.” After Cops we started to watch Jesus Christ Vampire Slayer, or something, about Lesbians and punks in a fanged fight against Jesus. Anders read me Vonnegut, and I fell asleep on his shoulder snoring, mouth open, and he didn’t even move me away.
Anders&I went running through the trees and a baby black bear sprinted in front of us.
At some point Gary&Anders&I walked along the trail by the river to pull more grapevines. The trail was thin and of dirt. The trees were green to brown to bright yellow and fell with the weight of the rain on their flesh, and in the gust of wind. The water was a silent hush to our right, the woods dense and full of colors. It was my heart. Gary made me look out for the neighbors so we could run if they saw us axing down the vines that hugged their trees. Shadow wove himself between the roots and legs and limbs, digging for vermin. The three of us had a root over our shoulder and walked in long separations, following a line where the tip-tendrils of the root teased the toes of our feet.
We got in touch with Weston, who had a long weekend off from Fort Drum for his birthday. He picked us up late afternoon, and the three of us started the drive to NYC. The drive lolled, everything was simple and fields and straight. The cows were of a different pattern.
We stopped in Albany, because surely the capital could offer us a prefunking of sorts. The architecture was beautiful. We walked down the main drag, stopped at a bar called “Bayou,” where we ordered some Hex&Blue Moon, fried alligator and dip, and an assortment of fried goods like onion rings, nachos, and deep-fried mushrooms. The bar was filled with construction workers. The windows opened large for a street view, where we watched homeless men serenade barfolk out for a smoke, where we watched the town celebrity walk by in red and white striped plastic hooker boots, where we watched several police cars pull a car over in front of the bar. Every one of us watched through the window. Someone opened the door. The bartended put “Bad Boys” on real loud, and all of us laughed. “Bad Boys” had its mark on the trip.
We found a place to stay on the main drag. We stopped inside a bar and had beers&a heavy whiskey lemonade. We told the bartender that we were in town for Weston’s birthday, and that led to, “What’s your favorite bourbon?” Which led to, “Let me pour us 4 shots of it,” which led to us taking birthday shots with the bartender, on the bartender. We walked to another bar. Weston ordered us martinis. They weren’t justright, so Weston got half an orange from the bartender, pulled out his knife, carved a hunk of flesh from the fruit, took out a lighter, lit the fruit flab on fire and let it fall into the glass. Then it was justright, with its smoky zest. At this point, Anders&Weston sang “Born to be Wild,” with Anders onstage and Weston below, amping the crowd, raising arms - together a perfect duet. I watched from a stool, thinking. “God do I love this.”
And then at this point we were a little all over the place. Weston fought with himself in front of people, I went to sleep, and the boys woke up with pizza crumbs on their chest.
We got to NYC early afternoon, called a hotel and got ourselves a place to stay somehow: The Park Savoy, Midtown ($195). We settled, dressed in our birthday get-ups, and took a sub to the meatpacking district. This is where the spirit was. We stopped for sushi and sat outside at a table on the sidewalk so we could people watch. We sat beside Ellis Hooks, Musician, and his Jamaican, conspiracy&life-smart, outspoken friend. Ellis connected with Anders because they were both Aquarius’. They told us stories, they told us:
-Everyone has a red carpet for you to walk on, it’s just that some are stained
-Everything is going to shit, and the only way we can do anything about it is to go back to the basics
-That this sushi place, right here is where we come to feel the energy
-“Hornyscopes”
-That the Jamaican man speaks in codes and him and Ellis only ever became friends because one didn’t believe in buying beers for ladies to get ladies, while the other one did
-If you want to bag a younger woman you have to have $, because all everyone wants these days is youth, and in order to afford youth, you got to have $$
We drank sake, Japanese beer, and a mango sake flavored slush. We had soup, rice, and a sashimi sampler platter, my favorite: the salmon. There were several occasions where Anders&Weston choked on ginger. In one instance Weston started crying. We spent hours talking to Ellis, and then we went to the Coyote Ugly bar, which smelled like puke, then around and around trying to find the place with the right ambiance. We ended up in a wealthy area where everyone was trying real hard. We had cocktails at some Monkey place, then walked to Times Square. There were people in those jump-shoes kangarooing around the Square. We saw people we liked, we saw people we didn’t like at all. I sat down at a mojito bar by myself and ordered a margarita. It felt good to. The boys caught up and ordered mojito’s. We told the waitress it was Weston’s birthday, so she brought 4 shots of sweet tea. We asked if she could be our guide for the next few days. She offered to take us to breakfast in Brooklyn on Sunday morning, but then maybe she thought we were creepy because she never called. At some point we bought Weston a flask and he bought himself an expensive bottle of bourbon. I wore black strappy heels - got deep cuts that pulled into my Achilles, so that in the morning, for the next several days, my feet would swell, the tendons would be tight, a scab formed over night to fit the position, and I’d have to reopen the wound just to get the flex of my flesh back. (I think I have this night a little backwards.)
On the night of Weston’s birthday we ate at Ray’s pizza: a large pesto, which Weston balanced on his head to demonstrate his straight-backed elegance. The boys fell asleep in their outfits. In the morning, Weston said, “The good thing about falling asleep in your clothes: I’m dressed and ready to go.”
Saturday October 9: We decided to stay another night at The Park Savoy. We put running clothes on and walked to a bike rental. Weston got a bike, and the three of us went around Central Park, in between different types of runners, bladers, bikers, buggies, babies. The sun was full of heat. I didn’t know October in NYC could be so warm.
We got ready, moved the car to a cheaper lot (30-50 bucks for 24hr.) and walked ourselves to a brew house where Anders got a sampler, Wes a bottle of something, and I, a woodchuck cider. We watched football, imagined the types of Irish crowds that might frequent the place. We walked ourselves into a market that took up most, if not all of 6th. We bought sausages cut from large coils - so large and thick they were twice the size of the bun, bursting brown and black from each end, curving into the air, with hot orange-glazed onions and peppers, with spicy mustard and ketchup for $8 a pop. Anders got some shades, Wes a green cashmere scarf, me, I got a candy apple covered in chocolate and sprinkles.
From here we walked through Chinatown with thoughts of eating something disgusting, but nothing presented itself. We looked at design shops with Eames chairs and things we wished we could buy: lamps and lights, rugs and skins, sofas and beds – the things that build the kind of design homes we’re maturing into wanting (and so begins the long road to realizing cost&labor).
We stopped off at a shop, got Anders’ some snug Levi’s because 1. His nice pants were waterlogged in mildew and wet wood from the Labor Camp in Lyons Falls, and 2. He had been wearing his only other pair for the last 3 days. It was recommended to Weston that we check out Pegu, a cocktail bar famed for its quality. Wes ordered a cocktail which “was the best cocktail he ever had,” with layers of age and a flavor that erupted 10 seconds after a sip, Anders a drink called “Red Pepper, Red Pepper,” which had a sensational peppery aftertaste that kept to the tongue and throat like a blanket, and I an apple cocktail with a thin slice of fruit floating, saturating in the pinkish hue. We were all ecstatic. We decided we could trust the advice of the person who had suggested Pegu, and next on the list was a tequila bar.
The tequila bar had a doorman, and the doorman had a servant boy who maintained the floor plan and carried word to the doorman to either deny people and have them wait on the street to enter, or to let them in. We had to wait on the street, watched the doorman heckle dressed up women, asking them questions about who they were meeting inside in and so on. They made us a table, a little pizza box sized square and a couple stools to sit on. The room had a beautiful aura, the walls distorted, with wallpaper flaking and red lights. The crowd was hip-thinking-they’re-hip business suit men and first daters that looked more like met-you-on-the-internet-and-I’m-losing-your-interest-slowly sorts. But all of this was perfect and Anders ordered a Mexican beer with salt, Weston some flavored/aged tequila, and I, tequila infused with flowers in a highball. We went to Brooklyn? We went to a Jekyl&Hyde bar/restaurant where you pay for them to scare you, and the doorman heckled me on which man I was going to choose and how much of an asshole I was that I was with two. At one point he told me to shut up. It was really interesting, almost refreshing. We tried to find the Ray’s Pizza we had been to the night previous, but ended up at a different one. Anders&Weston got really mad about this and basically took it out on the pizza maker. They ordered a Sicilian and then got mad because Sicilian was just “Cheese.”
Sunday 10/10/10: Woke up, ate some of the leftover Sicilian, and packed up from The Park Savoy. Went to the MOMA, which was incredible. Favorite pieces:
-Mac Adams: The Toaster, 1976
-Alex Prager: Despair, 2010
-Gustav Klimt: Hope, II, 1907-08
-Frida Kahlo: Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, 1940
And the design&architecture display with large Warhol’s and furniture.
By this time, our feet were killing us. It never stopped.
Somewhere in the middle of our nonstop action we went to Hooters and had dinner, which was not so cute and not so cheap, and I definitely ate a couple pounds of roast beef. Somewhere in the middle of all of this we decided we really liked us all together, and that each of us had skills we could bring to the union, like how Weston knows stuff about knives&guns and Anders, he was the make-it-happen man, the go-getter, and then I was the glue. And then we made up a handshake.
The Irish girl was perfectly badass. There was a live Irish band tucked in the corner, a couple people started to do the Irish jig. The girl told us some phrases from Ireland, kept ordering us shots, and then Weston and her tried recruiting members for their side of the gang, who would support who till the end. There was a lot of talk on tattoos and relationships, and the girl told Weston he looked like a famous singer, and Anders looked like some guy she knew, but who was an ass, but no he wasn’t like that at all, and she said, “I can tell when people last.”
The end of this goes: Weston might have lost – I tried a sip of one of his drinks, and it was just ginger ale. We met many people, and I liked every one of them. A cool redheaded guy from England named Ian bought us drinks and gave us hugs.
Monday October 11: We woke up, grabbed some toasted sesame bagels with cream cheese, and some apple juice and walked to the Apple Store where Anders&I looked at Ipads and booked a room in the UN district for the night ($99). There was a Memorial Day Parade going on. We decided to walk to the Metropolitan. Weston ate a couple vendor hot dogs. We watched people take pictures of each other on the stairs leading up to the Met. Like a badass, Weston had to check his knife in at security, and then we walked and saw and saw all the different rooms of different art: of helmets and rusted green horse armory, of gold jewelry and stolen bracelets that had to be reconstructed by Tiffany’s in mimicry, of marble statues, and Monet, and photographs of Pollack. There was too much to see. It was overwhelming. On the top floor, the observation deck, there was a bamboo fort installation piece. Weston had a beer to nurse himself back from the previous night’s game, and kept talking about how he’d give himself a saline bag when he got back to the Fort. Wes had a couple more hot dogs, and then I told him I’d beat him in a wiener-eating contest, so now we’ve got to do that. We took a sub ride to Ground Zero, walked around the financial district, saw suits and the reconstruction project, saw a glimpse of Lady Liberty punching through a pink&purple haze of wisp&sky, and ran to get back on the subway to make it to the car garage in time.
The three of us, the gang with a handshake decided to go out for one last good meal, and we wanted Mexican. We chose Rosa Mexicana, which held copper plates and expensive entrees, but it didn’t matter, because we heard about the guacamole and we were in the city and Weston was with us, a man with only 3 days off a month, a new 24 yr. old. We ordered our guac hot and spicy, and they made it in front of us on a rolling table: 2-3 large avocados, a mans handful of peppers& pepper seeds, scoops of onions, tomatoes, all mixed in a stone dish. We ordered a pitcher of red sangria, which had diced melon, pineapple, green apple, and cucumber. Weston had the ribs, which fell soft from the large bones, which was heaven in my mouth with the chocolatey brown-spiced sauce, with black mashed beans and feta, with orange Mexican rice. Anders had enchiladas in a cream sauce. I had a vegetable accoutrement with flaxseed tortillas: roasted mushroom flanks and kale and yam in a stone dish, a bowl of creamy corn and brown beans, a spiced sour cream and salsa. The place was perfect for our last meal. Outside the rain began in sheets. Outside there were limp umbrellas and dogs dragging.
Weston took us to get checked into our hotel, which turned out to be an apartment with a granite bathroom, kitchen, dining area with table spread, separated bedroom and large HD TV with a white sofa-bed. We were upset we hadn’t found the gem before: the cheapest, most qualified room yet. We said Goodbye to Weston, sad to leave him to make the drive to Watertown alone, wishing there was a way we could have kept him one more night in our UN apartment. For some reason the floor was greasy. Anders and I walked on towels and scooted across the slick tiles. There was thunder and lightening. The bed was comfortable, his skin so soft.
In the morning Anders&I packed up and went for coffee. We walked to Grand Central Station so I could catch a bus to La Guardia; he walked to Penn Station to take a train to Saratoga Springs.
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